The December 28 New York Times reported another “oops!” in vitro fertilization (IVF) moment. A technician in Utrecht may have mixed up sperm used to fertilize eggs, leading to the members of 26 couples perhaps not being the parents of the babies they contracted to produce. I admit that last sentence is a bit awkward: … Read more
James Christian Aggeles is a paranoid schizophrenic with various personality disorders and grandiose delusions, which came to the forefront after he donated sperm to Xytex Corp., a “fertility company” based in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Aggeles claimed to have an I.Q. of 160 (well above Stephen Hawking’s and Einstein’s), with various degrees, and working on a Ph.D. … Read more
The first reaction one might have to Henderson v. Adams, the June 30 decision of a federal district court declaring Indiana’s parenthood statutes unconstitutional because they treat “same-sex spouses” differently from the real ones is: further proof of the corrupt influence of the Supreme Court’s legalization of homosexual and lesbian “marriage.” That’s not necessarily untrue, … Read more
What if embryonic DNA could be extracted from amniotic fluid and information from that DNA could be used to build a high probability composite of what the embryo will look like as a 2-year-old, a 6-year-old and beyond? DNA phenotyping, also known as molecular photofitting, is a process of predictive modelling linking genetic traits and … Read more
It saddens me to know couples in their late thirties trying unsuccessfully to conceive. The notion that it is easy to conceive at any age under 40—and perhaps beyond that—has taken firm, but mistaken, hold in our culture. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recently published a meta-analysis concluding that women’s fertility begins to … Read more
Karla and Jacob began dating in 2009 when they were 42 and 32 years old, respectively. After Karla was diagnosed with lymphoma, and “despite neither of them thinking the relationship had long-term prospects,” both agreed to have human embryos created from their gametes. These were frozen for later use because treatment would, unfortunately, destroy Karla’s … Read more
An article in the March issue of Pediatrics entitled “Marriage and the Well-Being of Children” tacitly admits that there may be empirical evidence that “children reared by same-sex couples fare worse than children in other arrangements.” However, the authors, Jeremy Garrett and John Lentos, argue that there are no “intrinsic properties of traditional marriages that … Read more
The dominant secular culture portrays the world of In vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogate pregnancies as a great advance for mankind, even as it generates a stream of horror stories beyond the imagination of Greek tragedians. Not a week passes, it seems, without a new disturbing permutation to this culture. “Surrogate offered $10,000 to abort … Read more
It can be difficult initially to understand why the Church opposes procedures such as in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Church teaches that children are the “crowning glory” of marriage. “Why oppose something that allows couples to bring new babies into the world?” Sometimes there is more frustration behind the question: “Why does the Church think … Read more